Friday, January 30, 2015

Since it is rather bleak outside at the moment, cold but not really winter wonderland, I was yearning for some color.
Cutting up a melon a few days ago and marveling at the intricate inside gave me an idea...

Mostly it is the flower of a plant that we admire, but on closer examination, the inside of a fruit or vegetable can be as beautiful!

On the same site (2) is also explained why the mountain caribou is declining fast:

"Population has declined greatly and continues to decline. Many
subpopulations are disjunct, and the smallest populations have so few
animals that they are susceptible to extirpation simply due to
stochastic events. Loss of old coniferous forests, primarily to
logging, leads to increased predation, loss of forage and increased
susceptibility to disturbance. Increasing numbers of other ungulate
species have further driven up predator populations."

Now the Government of British Columbia is finally ready to take action, 12 years after the mountain caribou was declared threatened....well better late than never, right?

They are going to tackle the main problem, or so they say...lets read the text above again:

LOSS OF OLD CONIFEROUS FORESTS, PRIMARILY TO LOGGING.....

In regards to their own finding one would hope that they are reducing or stopping logging in the known caribou habitats and greatly reduce ANY human activity in theaffected areas.

But far from it, instead of education for example snow mobile drivers or back country skier and restricting all other recreational use, as for example hunting the caribou, the government has a different plan.

They are planning to kill, and this has already started!!!, about 180 wolves in the region where the caribou are dwindling. Mind you, in one of these regions, the Peace region/region 7B, hunting the caribou is still permitted.....(3)

Granted, in all studies that I read, the majority of caribou died through predation. Although even the government states, only 37% of these deaths were due to wolves (4). Once the wolves are culled are we then continue to eradicate cougars, bears and wolverines in the areas of concern?
As stated in the above excerpt, Loss of old coniferous forests, primarily to
logging, leads to increased predation!
Or in other words, as the Conservation Northwest (7) states: "Most herds are in decline as a result of widespread changes in their old
growth forest habitat from the cumulative effects of rampant logging,
road building and myriad other development. The science is clear that
the habitat fragmentation and the conversion of old growth forests have
made mountain caribou more vulnerable to predation. "
Also in the fairly current Management plan for the Grey Wolf by the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (5) it states that "Wolf densities were reduced; however, a correlation between reduced wolf densities and caribou recovery could not be substantiated"

In Alberta almost 1000 wolves got killed in the last 10 years to protect the mountain caribou. This postponed further shrinking of the threatened herd but the herd did not recover to a healthy size. And logging and other natural resource exploration are continuing....(6)

Seems like we are sitting between a rock and a hard place here, if we let the wolf cull unopposed happen, hundreds of wolfs will die in vain. But if no measurements are taken the caribou may disappear from the area and "there will be intense pressure to reopen those habitats to logging, road
building and motorized recreation – habitat
that is critical to thousands of other plants and animals." (7)

What we need is a solid, PERMANENT protection of the caribous habitat.

Nature doesn't need our help but our protection, she just needs to be left alone, as shown in this short movie:

Please stand up for our nature, wolves and caribou alike!

Don't look away....

How you can help and contribute:

- get informed, the links below are a great way to start
- share the information as much as you can, email, social media, talk to friends etc
- let the government now your opinion
- support Pacific Wild